This Yankees season has included a bat boy controversy — and now it has a “fat boy” mystery.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider was seen shouting, “shut up, fat boy, shut up” in the Yankees’ direction as the AL East rivals continued their contentious series Tuesday night.
It started in the top of third inning when Toronto’s dugout — led by pitching coach Pete Walker — started complaining that Luis Rojas had wandered too far out of the coach’s box outside the third base line.
The concern being that the Yankees coaches were somehow tipping batters to what pitch was coming — and in the Blue Jays’ minds was possibly the reason why Aaron Judge was shifting his eyes sideways before homering during the eighth inning of Monday’s Yankees victory.
Then, with Rojas growing frustrated, Yankees manager Aaron Boone jogged out to join the discussion, and that’s when cameras showed Schneider uttering the insult.
There is one problem, though:
Boone is not fat, nor a boy for that matter.
Rojas is also in good shape.
“In reading lips, he said ‘shut up, fat boy’ and Boone’s certainly not overweight…” play-by-play man Michael Kay said on the YES Network broadcast. “I don’t know who would fall under the heading of fat boy… I don’t know who he is yelling that to, maybe he is talking to me.”
Yankees assistant hitting coach Brad Wilkerson is a little on the heftier side, though did not seem involved with the dispute at hand.
According to the Yankees roster, Judge is the heaviest player on the team at 282 pounds, but no one has ever accused the 6-foot-7 slugger of being fat.
Anthony Rizzo weighs in at 240 but, at 6-foot-3, the first baseman is hardly chunky.
Could he have been barking at catcher Jose Trevino, who is a burly 5-10, 215 pounds?
Schneider did not confirm who his words were meant for.
“It’s two competitive teams not pleased with the way everything had shaken out over the last 24 hours,” Schneider told reporters after the game, according to the Toronto Sun.
“It’s people being competitive. Rojas responded the way he did and we responded the way we did.”
MLB cleared the Yankees of any wrongdoing after the Blue Jays brought Monday night’s situation up to the league.
“It’s a competitive environment,” Schneider said. “Things get said. People say things they may or may not regret.”
